Delamote’s Introduction, as well as the Sacred Songs by Tallis and Bird, were Vautrollier’s copyright, and we have already seen how intimate an acquaintance Shakspere had with music. Might not the above works have been the mine from which he obtained his knowledge?
Of religious works, Vautrollier printed and published several, all in accordance with the principles of the great Reformation, and the writer who argued that from his intimate knowledge of the tenets of Calvin, Shakspere must have been himself a Calvinist, would have found sufficient explanation of his special knowledge in the following books from Vautrollier’s press:
The Neu Testament, with diversities of Reading and profitable annotations. An epistle by J. Calvin, prefixed.
4to., 1575:
Institutio Christianæ Religionis, Joanne Caluino authorè.
8vo., London, 1576: and
The Institution of Christian Religion [not in Herbert’s Ames] written in Latine, by Mr. John Calvine, and translated into English by Thomas Norton. Imprinted at London, by Thomas Vautrollier.
8vo., 1578.
This last contains an Epistle to the Reader by John Calvin, as well as an address headed Typographus Lectori. Of each of the above works several editions were published.
In one of his pedantic speeches Holofernes exclaims: